The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German Filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is an engrossing audiobook, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

Unfamiliar Fishes

In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as crucial to our nation's identity, a year when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight. Of all the countries the United States invaded or colonized in 1898, Vowell considers the story of the Americanization of Hawaii to be the most intriguing.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

From the best-selling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette - the one Frenchman we could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States is a humorous and insightful portrait of the famed Frenchman, the impact he had on our young country, and his ongoing relationship with instrumental Americans of the time.

Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries

Jon Ronson is fascinated by madness, extraordinary behaviour and the human mind. He has spent his life investigating crazy events, following fascinating people and unearthing unusual stories. Collected here from various sources (including the Guardian and GQ America) are the best of his adventures.

The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England

Organized as a travel guide for the time-hopping tourist, The Time-Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England is an entertaining popular history with a twist. Historian Ian Mortimer reveals in delightful (and occasionally disturbing) detail how the streets and homes of 16th century looked, sounded, and smelled for both peasants and for royals; what people wore and ate; how they were punished for crimes and treated for diseases; and the complex and contradictory Elizabethan attitudes toward violence, class, sex, and religion.

The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors

The 15th century saw the longest and bloodiest series of civil wars in British history. The crown of England changed hands five times as two branches of the Plantagenet dynasty fought to the death for the right to rule. Now, celebrated historian Dan Jones describes how the longest reigning British royal family tore itself apart until it was finally replaced by the Tudors. Some of the greatest heroes and villains in history were thrown together in these turbulent times.

The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

The Etymologicon is a completely unauthorized guide to the strange underpinnings of the English language. It explains: How you get from “gruntled” to “disgruntled”; why you are absolutely right to believe that your meager salary barely covers “money for salt”; how the biggest chain of coffee shops in the world (hint: Seattle) connects to whaling in Nantucket; and what precisely the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science

When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution.

The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis

What can we still learn from C.S. Lewis? Find out in these 12 insightful lectures that cover the author's spiritual autobiography, novels, and his scholarly writings that reflect on pain and grief, love and friendship, prophecy and miracles, and education and mythology.

The Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy

Charles Darwin's theory of organic evolution-the idea that life on earth is the product of purely natural causes, not the hand of God-set off shock waves that continue to reverberate through Western society, and especially the United States. What makes evolution such a profoundly provocative concept, so convincing to most scientists, yet so socially and politically divisive? These 12 eye-opening lectures are an examination of the varied elements that so often make this science the object of strong sentiments and heated debate.

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire that stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world. We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights.

Fed, White, and Blue: Finding America with My Fork

Simon Majumdar is probably not your typical idea of an immigrant. As he says, "I'm well rested, not particularly poor, and the only time I ever encounter 'huddled masses' is in line at Costco." But immigrate he did, and thanks to a Homeland Security agent who asked if he planned to make it official, the journey chronicled in Fed, White, and Blue was born. In it, Simon sets off on a trek across the United States to find out what it really means to become an American, using what he knows best: food.

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.

The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War

John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabiadefinitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed. Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.

The Innocents Abroad: Or, The New Pilgrim’s Progress

In June 1867, Mark Twain set out for Europe and the Holy Land on the paddle steamer Quaker City. His enduring, no-nonsense guide for the first-time traveler also served as an antidote to the insufferably romantic travel books of the period.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

A major audiobook about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on Earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Detroit: An American Autopsy

In the heart of America, a metropolis is quietly destroying itself. Detroit, once the richest city in the nation, is now its poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age - mass production, automobiles, and blue-collar jobs - Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, foreclosure, and dropouts. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation that only a native son can possess, journalist Charlie LeDuff sets out to uncover what has brought low this once-vibrant city, his city.

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.

Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion

Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.

Great Catherine: The Life of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia

Prize-winning historian and biographer, Carolly Erickson has created an eminently readable biography that recognizes the humanity of Great Catherine—Empress of Russia—with her majesty and immense capability. Dispelling some of the myths surrounding her voracious sexual appetite, the biographer portrays Catherine as a lonely woman far ahead of her time—achieving greatness in an era when women were executed on a husband’s whim.

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered.

The Elephant in the Room: A Journey into the Trump Campaign and the "Alt-Right"

'But Hillary is a known Luciferian,' he tried. 'She's not a known Luciferian,' I said. 'Well, yes and no,' he said. In The Elephant in the Room, Jon Ronson, the New York Times best-selling author of The Psychopath Test, Them, and So You've Been Publicly Shamed, travels to Cleveland at the height of summer to witness the Republican National Convention.

Tinsel Tales: Favorite Holiday Stories from NPR

Ho ho ho! Here's what to listen to while driving to the mall, wrapping gifts, entertaining friends, or relaxing in front of a crackling holiday fire. In Scott Simon's modern version of the Christmas story, Jesus is born in an abandoned factory near Cleveland and the Three Wise Persons bring Chipotle gift cards. Claudia Sanchez gives a Latin accent to "A Visit from St. Nicholas". Barbara Bradley Hagerty explores what Christmas means for the boy choristers of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. (Hint: Handel).

Publisher's Summary

The Wordy Shipmates is New York Times best-selling author Sarah Vowell's exploration of the Puritans and their journey to America to become the people of John Winthrop's "city upon a hill" - a shining example, a "city that cannot be hid."

To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means - and what it should mean. What was this great political enterprise all about? Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation? What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest. The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance. Along the way she asks:

Was Rhode Island's architect, Roger Williams, America's founding freak or the father of the First Amendment? Same difference.

What does it take to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A hatchet.

What was the Puritans' pet name for the Pope? The Great Whore of Babylon.

Sarah Vowell's special brand of armchair history makes the bizarre and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun. She takes us from the modern-day reenactment of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from old-timey Puritan poetry, where "righteousness" is rhymed with "wilderness," to a Mayflower-themed waterslide. Throughout, The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America's most celebrated voices. Thou shalt enjoy it.

Sarah Vowell's innate medium is audiobooks and radio (NPR). In her squeaky voice, she recounts history with passion, irony and humor intertwined with curent events and pop culture. There is nobody I can think of who is quite rivals her in contemporary commentary. She is a modern version of Mark Twain. If she ever decides to auction off on eBay her attendance at a dinner party, I will certainly be one of the bidders.

This book provides a good companion piece to Philbrick's Mayflower which chronicles the Pilgrims from the point of view of the Indian Wars. Vowell focuses on the cousins of the Pilgrims in Boston and the Winthrop legacy. But the real hero of both books turns out to be Roger Williams who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious freedom and civil liberties / property rights for the Native Americans. Thus, whatever cynicism one has for the Puritan settlers, it is leavened by the pride in the early recognition in this country for the values of freedom. She also balances the strictness of the Protestant ethic with the great devotion to education embodied in the founding of Harvard College that initiated the common goal of educational excellence that is so much part of American ideals.

Once again, Vowell has managed to bring American history to life, "as only Sarah Vowell can". (Sorry, I just had to say that)
She has brought up some of the most compelling issues surrounding the first european settlers, particularly their religious and philosophic debates with each other and those outside their particular brand of puritanism. She is helped in the narration by the usual cast of Upper West Siders (Bogosian, Keener, et al) which helps keep the book moving along nicely.

Vowell is an amateur historian in the classic sense. She is not formally trained, but her vast knowledge comes from her own curiosity about this country's origins. She ably bounces forward and back in time, commenting freely on current events and viewing the past with a decidedly contemporary lens. She threads in her views on current politics, just as she did in "Assassination Vacation" and "The Partly Cloudy Patriot". She is developing a terrific way to view and understand history - as one other review (Baron's) said, "History as reported by the Daily Show". That says it all.

Sarah Vowell is a national treasure. Who is the last person that made understanding the Puritans both cool and fascinating. Reading the Wordy Shipmates helped me connect the dots between our current military adventures and our earliest colonial history. Growing up in Boston you'd think the I'd know more about the Boston Puritans, but somehow teaching this sort of history went out of style during my school years. This funny, smart, and wise book is a great demonstration as to why understanding the Boston Puritans is important for us all. I'm trying to figure out a way to assign this book in the classes I teach (out of a business school!).

This is wonderful. I am biased. I love neurotic, intelligent, sarcastic women. Oh baby. It's a good thing I encountered this in audio format because my eyes kept rolling back in my head at the sheer wonderfullness of it.

She isn't intimidated by history, and she brings history alive in a quirky and relevant way. She enhances the narrative with just the right amount of historical context, and then shows how politicians today are influenced by these characters even today.

I think if you like "The Daily Show" you will like this. Oh, and if you like "This American Life." You don't have to like both, just one will do.

On the quibble front, the interspersing of quotes didn't work as well as it could have. It left Ms. Vowell sounding like she was at the end of her sentence when it was the middle. I suggest she read the full sentence and the audio engineer insert the actors' voices, so it sounds like she is a really good mimic rather than she stopped and someone else started.

Sarah Vowels amusing history of the Puritans and the Native Americans around them, is engaging, scholarly, and, yes.... funny. It takes a good writer to subtly highlight the ironies of 17th Century New England. She liberally cites primary documents from the time period. Her greatest triumph is her ability to make the period come alive and relate it to today's America. The Author does a lovely job reading. Don't forget that she is a voice actress too. (The Incredibles)

Sarah Vowell writes history with the voices of humor and irony. The Wordy Shipmates is highly entertaining while it clearly draws out modern similarities and points out various repercussions and misrepresentations in todays society. I found the book to be equally enjoyable and informative. I greatly enjoyed the slightly liberal narrative voice while having a difficult time adjusting to the audio voices. Over all I think this is an excellent lively read and I cherish Vowell as one of my favorite non-fiction writers.

This audiobook rocks. I say "audiobook" and not "book" because not only is the content great, it actually SOUNDS good. If you are familiar to audiobooks, you realize some are tragically awful sounding. This audiobook features interludes of sea voyage inspired music and humorous yet realistic renditions of the Puritan letters, etc. Makes it almost fun to be stuck in traffic.
That being said, the true value of this book is the witty humor of Sarah Vowell, the mix of pure intelligence with pop culture references, and the thorough research and obvious passion with which it was clearly created. SV's findings are important in the context of our current culture and world issues and should be an urgent call to seriously (and humorously) consider our actions based on the Puritan culture and what we've learned (or haven't learned) about it. Thank you Sarah!

This book was full of stunning research into the foundations of our earliest American ancestors and the motivations that drove them across oceans. The author also caught me by surprise with references to current leaders and politicians that have been cut from the same cloth as their Puritan ancestors. A great book with solid research.